exercise daily

yeah, I really mean it. daily.

that doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym every day, or have an hour long workout everyday.
you don’t need to purchase a ton of equipment or get a personal fitness trainer.
you don’t need to first purchase a bunch of books or attend a class.

the most important thing is: decide – then do.

15 minutes a day is enough.

Enough to give you more energy, enough to relieve some stress,
enough to make you feel healthier, and most importantly:
enough to make you follow through on your decision.

you can even split it up: do 7 or 8 minutes of exercises right when you get up, and then another 7 or 8 minutes later in the day; any type of exercise, really – anything that will put a little more than usual strain on your body:
lift that shopping bag full of stuff up to your chest and lower it again – repeat ten or fifteen times. If you drop your brush, or wallet etc., pick it up and then drop it again and pick it up again. It’s so easy to get some movement into your bones, it just takes a little commitment.

if you really can’t come up with any exercises to do, feel free to message or e-mail me, and I’ll suggest some

DO IT, I DARE YOU!

decisions…

Sometimes you just have to decide. There’s no more wavering, just a decision to be made. Sometimes circumstances force you to, then it’s very relieving, but other times you just have way too much room for indecision. You have too much time and/or too many options. How to decide?

Making decisions can be a difficult task – it might even seem unsurmountable at times. You are going to have to live with the consequences of your decision, worse yet, somebody else might have to live with the consequences. Oh, the responsibility! Your solution: RUN!! run from the torture of having to make any decision. Run from the risk of having to carry any responsibility. or…

here’s my two cents worth: as hard as it is to make a decision, it can get easier. “How?” you may ask. Well, that’s simple, the same way most other things become easier: practice. The more you make decisions, the easier it is, the more you try to avoid them, the more intimidating they become.

So, here’s the deal: begin with little decisions. Practice just deciding, ONCE, and sticking to that decision. “chocolate or vanilla?” chocolate! and now stick with that decision! There’s no “or maybe…”. DO NOT second guess yourself! Once you’ve practiced with a few smaller decisions, take the challenge of one bigger decision: Am I going to go out with my friends friday night, or not? whatever you decide, remember: stick to that decision!! (this one will be especially difficult, ’cause it involves other people, people who are going to try and influence your decision-making).
(remember, this is an exercise to help you actually MAKE a decision, it doesn’t mean that every decision you make HAS to be final; but when practicing, try and make them final, that will help you prevent the flip-flop behavior, the indecisiveness.)

I recently heard someone say: “you don’t make a right decision; you make a decision, and then you MAKE IT RIGHT!”

Too many people get stuck in their holes of indecisiveness, don’t join them!

don’t turn “this stress” into “distress”

By popular demand (that is, one person’s request), today’s topic is “stress”.
Having already had this in the back of my mind for the past week, it’s funny that just today my life should be humored by the mail I received. Today the mailman (or woman, I’m not quite sure) left me two letters (that’s right, not one, but two). One sender I was familiar with, the other I had but a faint guess at who it might be (but knowing it must be something of importance since they required confirmation of delivery). Well, to spare you any more elaboration on the stories: they were both bills. big ones. One completely unexpected, the other somewhat unexpected (“somewhat”, since I didn’t expect this bill to hit until February or March). And to give you and idea why this might be of any significance (or relevance to this blog): I’m completely blank. (yes, I saved and spent every last penny on what’s most important to me, and that’s the opportunity to go spend some time with my wonderful girlfriend). Both of these bills that just paved their way into my life on this dreary late autumn day exceed my current monthly wage. Additionally the sender of the completely unexpected bill been so kind as to offer me six days to hand over the mulah before they take me to court.

So, can you see how this might possibly be a stressor in my life right now? Now I believe I have gained the credibility to write about this topic…

Since this isn’t a paper, but rather a blog post, I’ll try not to elaborate too much, but just give you a little food for thought.

I found this explanation/definition of stress in the internet “Stress is a biological term which refers to the consequences of the failure of a human or animal body to respond appropriately to emotional or physical threats to the organism, whether actual or imagined.” (from The Stress Of Life, Hans Selye, as quoted in Wikipedia) The first thing this statement tells us, is that stress is a response. Recently I was listening to Jack Canfield as he was talking about his favorite formula: E + R = O . That is, “Event + Response = Outcome”. This means, the outcome isn’t merely determined by what happens to you, but also (and perhaps largely) by the way you respond to that. Which brings us to the famous quote by the Greek philosopher Epictetus “it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you react to it that matters.” Many times we can’t control the event – the circumstance, the situation, whatever it is that is happening or has happened to us, but if we don’t like the outcome, we DO have the choice about how we respond to that event. Now if stress is a response, this means that we can choose to either have it or not have it. The event itself (whether it be a task or a situation) is not the stress, our response to this event determines whether or not we experience stress.

Stress relievers: here are a few things that might help you in dealing with stressful situations (or things to do once you feel stressed)
- be thankful: think of all the blessings in your life, begin to write them down, and remind yourself daily
- do sports: a great way to vent some of that crazyness building up inside you
- listen to music: either something uplifting, or something that identifies with your situation (I don’t recommend depressing or hateful music/lyrics)
- eat some chocolate: a little, now don’t overdo it! but a few happy endorphins might just work a miracle
- read Calvin and Hobbes: or any type of humor that can get you at least chuckling, at best rolling on the floor.
- put it in perspective: my mother would always quote my grandmother saying “what’s that compared to eternity?!”. now, since our little brains don’t do well thinking in terms of eternity, we might take up the suggestion of Darren Hardy (Publisher of Success magazine) to ask yourself “In 20 years will this matter” (do you remember what you were stressed about on November 19th, 1988? well, there you go!). Another point he makes in the article is “at least I don’t live in Bosnia” – a thought that came to mind after he’d been stressed about something and then turned on the TV and seen the news. When you realize the problems some people face, you’ll realize how minute some of the things you worry about are. What gets me is thinking back to the time I spent in Thailand: meeting the girls there who’d been at risk of being sold into prostitution by their families, seeing them smiling and enjoying life, praising God, makes me realize that my problems most of the time aren’t even worth mentioning. If they can praise God after all they’ve gone through, who am I to complain?!

Remember:
You choose how you view a situation: you can view it as a challenge, an opportunity to grow – greatness is often birthed in arduous circumstances. If it’s pressure – that’s how diamonds are shaped; If it’s resistance – that’s how muscles are built; if it’s opposition blowing straight in your face – that’s how a sail can chart a new course. You choose.

If you still feel the need to read more about stress or avoiding it, the google search for stress came up with over 160million results, “avoid stress” turned out almost 2 million results, and “prevent stress” came back with over 2.5 million results – so there’s plenty of info (personally I would recommend the article by Darren Hardy mentioned above, and the second one about building resilience to stress).